Download Hermann Scherchen: Handbook of Conducting, OUP

Title:
Handbook of Conducting
Author:
Hermann Scherchen
Publisher:
OUP
Date:
1989
Pages:
241
Reviewer:
Peter Fender
Date reviewed:
02/12/2016
About the author
Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966) was born in Berlin. In 1933 he moved to Switzerland and worked
for many years in the city of Winterthur. He was principal conductor of the Winterthur city
orchestra for almost 30 years, and worked with them particularly on contemporary music. He
recorded a wide variety of music, from the baroque through to premières, and made an important
orchestral arrangement of Bach’s ‘The Art of Fugue’.
Review
The forward to this book is by Norman Del Mar, and is a warm recommendation of the book. He
calls it: “By far the most absorbing and demanding book on conducting ever published … it is both
visionary and rivetingly interesting”. He does temper his enthusiasm somewhat at points, but Del
Mar’s words excited me – I couldn’t wait to get reading!
What I found, however, has rather underwhelmed me. I shall comment on three things: firstly the
language, secondly the organisation, and finally the key theme of his book.
The language. The book was written in German in 1929. The translation has been made not into an
English from an equivalent period but an (at times) awkward English which makes the already quite
dense style of writing sometimes difficult to understand.
Secondly let’s look at the organisation of the book. It begins with a section of the skills and aptitudes
required by a conductor – particularly the requirement for strong musical imagination. He begins to
develop here a theme which punctuates the book: “My intention is to show that a technique of
conducting does exist, and can be learnt and practised down to its smallest details before a student
first attempts to conduct an orchestra”. We shall return to this later. After this introduction he
gives a list of things that must be trained in a conductor – through sight-singing, melodic
improvisation, harmonic and rhythmic understanding. Exercises are given for each category. For
example, the rhythmic exercises culminate it beating 4 against 5. Tough stuff, and the exercises are
not sufficient in and of themselves, but this serves as a reminder as to how a conductor must be a
fine all-rounder. There follows a short section about the orchestra as an entity followed by a long
section on orchestral instruments. This is the core of the book, taking up almost 100 pages. He
moans that conductors are always string players (although he was himself a violist!) and so devotes
more space than one might expect to the wind, brass and percussion. There are many musical
examples, and a good number are fascinating as there is a greater preponderance of 20th works than
you normally find in such books – a good thing indeed (although some of the composers are quite
unknown to me, e.g. Casella and Kaminsky). This is surely what Mr Del Mar was so keen – he himself
had a lifelong fascination with instruments and would therefore have enjoyed Scherchen’s detailed
instrumental information. The third section is about the technique of conducting. This is done in
less than 40 pages. There is not sufficient detailed information here - nor are the diagrams of a good
enough quality – for a student to get to grips with conducting technique by reading it. Conversely
there is occasionally a lot of detail for some specific examples that follow on, and these could repay
careful study. The final section of the book is a series of analyses, from a conductor’s point of view,
of three works: Beethoven Symphony No.1; R Strauss Till Eulenspiegel, Stravinsky Soldier’s Tale. I
struggled through the Beethoven section and couldn’t face the Strauss and Stravinsky. One big
problem is that he refers to a specific edition of each score by page number so unless you have that
score it’s very hard to follow along. A strongly positive point, however, is the detail he gives
regarding balancing the orchestral sound (both here and in the section on instruments).
Finally, a word more about Scherchen’s key theme: “When a student confronts and orchestra for
the first time, he must have thoroughly mastered the practice of his craft. He must be not merely
theoretically able to conduct an orchestra, but actually capable of dealing with the realities of the
orchestra.” Now I would certainly agree that it is verging on the criminal that some musicians think
that all you need to be conductor is to buy a baton. It’s a craft that must be learned. But Scherchen
seriously overstates the case. It would be like saying “Before you drive a car you must know how to
drive a car”. It’s an impossibility. Yes, you can know much about subdividing, cues, pauses etc etc
but you cannot know the reality of conducting an orchestra until you actually do so! Presumably he
was reacting to currents in the musical world of the 20s, but it feels very overblown. His solution is
to say that the teacher should react (by singing or whistling!) to the student’s conducting to show
the student “the correlation between productive motion and sounding music”. That the reaction of
one person (the teacher) can prepare a student to face an orchestra of dozens of people is naïve at
best. The training can begin like this but must continue with the student working with ensembles
and musicians. As a footnote, it should be noted that this is a book for those who will work with
professional orchestras. There is no consideration of the many who will work with amateurs and
children, and of the significant differences this makes to how a conductor approaches many aspects
of his/her craft.
Conclusion
The most useful thing about this book is giving a historical perspective on conducting and on
orchestras. As examples: his diatribe against wind players with inferior instruments, his claim that
German musicians cannot play a true legato, his requirement that the leader should check every
string player’s tuning before they go on stage … and much more. There are more thorough books on
conducting technique, and on orchestral instruments in general (by of course Mr Del Mar!). But
aside from the historical interest of the book there are some wonderful nuggets of information,
especially about contemporary music, which will not be found elsewhere.